Not To Worry–Pretty Soon, No Republicans Will Be Influential

Gallup finds that the GOP is in retreat among almost all demographics. Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain does fierce battle against that most dangerous of creatures: the conservative who is taken seriously outside of the confines of the cocoon. The Gallup findings are interesting, because they show that conservatives are among the least likely to have stopped identifying themselves as Republicans, yet they remain convinced that pursuing an agenda geared towards appealing to them (and only to them) is the means to win back all the other people who have drifted away since ’01.

The Midwest figures are stunning: Republican ID in this region has dropped by nine points. This is not just the heartland, which the GOP is supposed to represent so well, but it has been the historic core of Republican politics at a national level since the founding of the party. Even having lost the Northeast is not quite as bad as being decimated in the Midwest. The GOP has even lost five points among married voters, six points among whites, seven points among men and nine points among middle-income voters, all of which are equal to or greater than the national average. This is the hollowing-out of the Republican coalition as we know it. McCain will be pleased to find that Republican ID among college graduates has dropped by ten points in the last eight years–the danger of more arrogant young punks involving themselves in conservative politics has been substantially reduced.

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80 Responses to Not To Worry–Pretty Soon, No Republicans Will Be Influential

“What is to be gained by seeming to identify with Parker vs. RSM in the grand hardcore vs. RINO battle royal is absolutely beyond me.”

The problem is that the so-called RINOs in McCain’s treatment often aren’t RINOs, or even when they are their “RINOism” is not what is wrong with them. For example, just as I do, you object to Frum’s agenda on social issues, not his lack of fidelity to the GOP. In fact, Frum has been reliably pro-Republican (and indeed crafts his policy arguments explicitly and almost solely around what he thinks will aid electoral chances of the GOP), but unreliably conservative as we and others see it. McCain chooses to lambaste such people as RINOs, and in so doing gets things as wrong as he can. You don’t have to like or agree with any of his targets to see that McCain is off base here, and you don’t have to approve of attention-seeking opportunists to recognize that the GOP’s real problem is not a few talking heads who get sinecures and friendly treatment by the other side. Self-criticism has become so rare inside the movement/cocoon that the few who are willing to be critical of their own “side” get an inordinate amount of attention. If McCain wanted to spite Frum et al., he would demand more reflection and thoughtfulness from the rest of the movement and waste less time berating the few people who, for whatever reason, are willing to recognize that the miserable state of the GOP is not just some accident or fluke. McCain might spend more time addressing what the real causes of GOP collapse are, and then propose remedies to them. However, that would require something other than bile, and so he doesn’t do it.

If I “seem to identify” with Kathleen Parker et al., it is only to the extent that I have little patience for the demands for lock-step conformity on genuinely non-essential questions. Kathleen Parker is not, in fact, a moderate or anything like it; mere months before she became classed with undesirable “RINOs” of various sorts, she was saying all sorts of far-out things about “blood equity” in connection with Obama. She was indistinguishable from the cacophonous voices that now call for her head. Indeed, I very much suspect that the reason people have turned against her is not what she said, but that she broke ranks, pure and simple. She had been a conventional, rising conservative columnist syndicated all over the place; she was very popular. Kathleen Parker then had the temerity to criticize Sarah Palin, for which she was branded a traitor. She did then relish the warm glow of media approval that followed partly out of a natural reaction against the hatred focused on her. The reflexive groupthink that insisted that Parker ought to be an outcast for her views on Palin was and remains far more dangerous than anything Parker did.

If we want to get down to cases, let’s consider McCain’s embarrassing obsession with Ross Douthat. Obviously, he hates Ross because Ross received a degree from a more prestigious school and has succeeded in the world in a short period of time; to justify unseemly envy, McCain has comforted himself with the idea that Ross, a serious Roman Catholic pro-lifer, is somehow insufficiently conservative to pass muster with him, the ex-Clinton Democrat. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that he has built up an entire theory of center-right politics to make his sad grudge against Ross seem like something more than sour grapes. Ross is not a RINO. He is more reliably Republican than I will ever be, and a lot more reliably Republican than McCain has been in his life. I don’t care about partisan loyalty, so I don’t consider a lack of it to be a failing, but McCain has a lot of nerve lecturing other people about their supposed disloyalty to party.

I have made more arguments defending Obama, for example, against unreasonable criticism from the GOP than most of the so-called “RINOs” will ever do, and I have done so because the criticism has been misguided or basically wrong, and I have shown sympathy to Obama when his policy views seem to coincide more with my own than any of the so-called “RINOs.” A remarkable number of paleo and alt-right folks gave Obama a lot more benefit of the doubt than I did, and a few were much more willing to see what they wanted to see in his candidacy. On the whole, they did this because they were motivated by principles, rather than concern for partisan victories. They were not becoming “moderates,” but were instead insisting on radical adherence to principle over and against partisan attachments.

Rod has a prominent place at one of the largest sites on religion on the Web. If that doesn’t count as having some kind of significant platform, I don’t know what does. Let’s do remember that the abuse hurled at “crunchy” cons and their friends was absolutely indistinguishable from the abuse heaped on these so-called “RINOs.” One might say that the difference is that the latter deserve more of it and we didn’t, but in the end the same unthinking response using the same tropes tells me that there is no constructive criticism that can be made against movement and party that will not be condemned in virtually identical ways. That is not the critics’ problem. It is the problem of the movement and the party, and it is a key part of why both are losing ground.

We should have the discernment to see the difference between defending individuals in specific cases against a mob mentality and endorsing whatever it is those individuals may have said to rile up the mob. In this scenario, McCain has chosen to play the role mostly of a demagogue playing to the passions of the crowd, and I guess he is winning admirers in the process. It is more of the same pseudo-populist rubbish that informs his unfortunate pro-Palin zeal, and which anyone interested in a successful populist conservatism ought to deplore. As I said about Palin at the time, the best thing for elite conservatives and GOP leaders is to have representatives of conservative populism who make it seem idiotic. McCain seems to be working overtime to make sure that there is no other way to think about it. In an ironic twist, McCain helps make Frum et al. more viable and more influential by making the apparent alternative seem so unattractive.

“Kathleen Parker then had the temerity to criticize Sarah Palin, for which she was branded a traitor.”

If we want to talk about something that historians centuries from now really will find trivial, it’s the Sarah Palin phenomenon. Both the intense love and the intense hatred were (and are, since they seem to still exist in some quarters) absurdly disproportionate to anything this very run-of-the-mill politician had ever done.

“Well, what about the firestoning that Jerry Taylor endured over at NRO? Everything he said came from a right-of-center perspectiveâ€¦”

That was frankly horrendous. I think most dissident conservatives like to overstate the perceived ideological hostility from the mainstream, but that one is a legit beef. I can forgive Mark Steyn, but Kathryn Lopez is irredeemably banal, even when I agree with her. K-Lo is to National Review what George W Bush was to the GOP.

“The problem is that the so-called RINOs in McCainâ€™s treatment often arenâ€™t RINOs, or even when they are their â€œRINOismâ€ is not what is wrong with them.”

That is an excellent point. One thing that hasn’t been dwelled on very much is that the taxonomy of the Right in America has been greatly clarified since say, December. There are three or four more or less distinct stripes kinds of dissident conservatism in play at the moment. Even though the worldview and policy choices vary wildly between them, they are all unified in their desire to repudiate what I call the Hannity-Palin axis, and in fact that’s where their energy is at the moment.

So even if Stacy is correct to defend mainstream conservatives, and I think he is, he should do a better job writing his bill of particulars.

I don’t think Frum was purged from NR in a fit of mutual bitterness. I think he needed a little more editorial space to develop his own ideas which he’s done, and good for him. Essentially his current stance is to flip on the environment and social conservative issues to put the more upscale, coastal voters back in play again. Frankly I don’t think this will work, politically or otherwise. But the motivation is understandable.

They had a good piece up the other day about health care reform to emphasize cost control, using the “enforcement first” immigration strategy as as an analog.

“Obviously, he hates Ross because Ross received a degree from a more prestigious school and has succeeded in the world in a short period of time; to justify unseemly envy, McCain has comforted himself with the idea that Ross, a serious Roman Catholic pro-lifer, is somehow insufficiently conservative to pass muster with him, the ex-Clinton Democrat. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that he has built up an entire theory of center-right politics to make his sad grudge against Ross seem like something more than sour grapes.”

I don’t think Stacy is envious of Ross (or God forbid hates him), he’s angry, to some extent at Ross but mostly at the establishmentarian mentality of the GOP establishment. The thing to understand is, the complaint is legit but the target isn’t. Other people “like” Ross in some ways fit Stacy’s complain a lot better. I think Ross gets some abuse because he wrote a book justifying nepotism.

Well, yes and no. The most important thing to emphasize is that, as hard as it is for many otherwise smart people to get their heads around, mainstream conservatives and the GOP have the winning message _right now_. That is, the winning message for America (given where we are right now, that will actually be easier than winning for the GOP).

The problem is bandwidth. Lots of people have lots of emotional issues of one kind or another. I’m guessing Les is more or less a garden variety liberal, so his bogeymen go back to Reagan. By contrast, most people who “should” vote Republican are stuck on Bush. Fine. Let’s figure out where the mental blocks are, and unpack them. Only then, unfortunately, can we talk apples to apples.

Daniel, do you really think RSM’s beef is that these people are insufficiently faithful to the Republican Party as an institution? I don’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if RSM voted third party in ’08. We have a terminology problem here. RINO does not really mean RINO. No one questions the fidelity to the party per se of John McCain, Snowe, Frum, etc. No one really even questioned it of Specter until he jumped ship. The issue is a lack of fidelity to the principles the party supposedly stands for. (Now whether it has ever actually stood for those things is debatable.) So RINO doesn’t really mean RINO, it means CINO. Or for those such as Specter who didn’t claim to be conservatives it meant something like sell-out or moderate or insufficiently conservative. But I really don’t think this is all that cryptic. RINO has a well understood meaning even if technically it is not entirely accurate. If a liberal Democrat called Bob Conley or Zell Miller a DINO would we be scratching our heads wondering whatever could they mean? It clearly would mean insufficiently liberal just as RINO means insufficiently conservative. (Now whether we are best served by such close hitching of the concept of conservatism to Republican is certainly debatable, but for now it is what it is.)

Frum is a particularly interesting case. A decade ago he wrote a book, Dead Right, claiming that the GOP was not conservative enough on spending. Of course he took shots at paleos in the book, but the major theme was something you, I and RSM could all agree on. That so-called conservatives don’t follow their small government rhetoric.

Now 10 years later he writes a book, runs a website, and hopes to lead a movement that says the exact opposite. That the GOP and conservatives need to drop the small government rhetoric and get with the big government program. Now how does one explain this radical transformation? While no one can read Frum’s mind, it is hardly outrageous to speculate that he changed partially because his conservative beliefs became increasingly hard for him to hold (and the GOP became increasingly uncomfortable to be identified with) among his social circle. And that this represents a cosmo vs provo divide as our friend Sean calls it (or elitist vs. populist, or anti-yahoo or whatever). His anti-Huck, anti-Palin, and anti-Meirs hysteria all reflects this same pattern.

There were good right-wing reasons to be against all three, but responsible rightist critics have to be clear that their criticism is in fact from the right or it all just sounds like more criticism from the cacophonous moderate middle.

I think that Koz actually falls into an error in the post above. For instance, the Republican indifference to crazy deficits actually began under Reagan and the Kemp/Roth tax cut. Now, they never meant for it to go this far, but at some point a lot of the base interpreted all of this to mean that lower taxes were always fine and would, generally, lead to expansive tax revenues. This is not, and never was, true. Even Milton Friedman would not make this claim ( I was amused, the other day, by Prof. Bainbridge’s argument that Richard Posner had never been a conservative…..liberals should be made of sterner stuff). I’m all for low – but progressive – taxation, but let us not pretend that reducing tax rates is gonna fill govt. coffers….it’s a gimmick line more suited to loan sharks than to statesmen….and yes I can apply that to Keynes and JFK as well as to the Gipper

I pick on tax and fiscal policy because these have become part and parcel of GOP ideology in a way that they were not when I was young. Back then – long ago and far away – the Republican Party was fiercely anti-communist but otherwise quite realpolitik. They were sort of casually pro-wealthy and low-tax, but….they had survived FDR, after all. They were anti-statist, but only in the same way that Jim Morrison once made the distinction between “suicide and slow capitulation”. Gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia were not on the horizon.

In short, things were quite different. This is not a message problem. Getting back to Reagan is no more helpful than getting back to FDR….it’s a pretty thought, and a seductive one, but it is not relevant to the current situation.

If a Democrat called Zell Miller or Joe Lieberman a DINO, she would not be referring to their lack of liberalism (Lieberman is quite liberal on most issues), but the fact that they have spoken at the Republican convention and endorsed Republican candidates.

Saying the word “Republican” in “Republican in name only” doesn’t mean “Republican” is playing a word game. Partisan solidarity is different from ideological solidarity, and the inability of some conservative republicans to distinguish between the two is part of the problem.

“the inability of some conservative republicans to distinguish between the two is part of the problem.”

We absolutely agree on that. But what RINO means to those who use it and hear it in this real world we actually live in today is insufficiently conservative. This may be unfortunate. This may be less than linguistically accurate. This warrants being addressed separately. But it is. So Daniel saying that Frum is actually a good Republican because he votes for the Party’s nominees (as far as we known) is not really addressing the point. Is Pat Buchanan a RINO because he once ran as the Reform Party candidate? Am I a RINO because I encouraged conservatives to vote for Baldwin instead of McCain and Frum not a RINO because he voted for McCain? Frum is a RINO because he endorsed Rudy Giuliani among many other reasons. This terminology, unfortunate or not, is clear to all who inhabit this universe.

There’s obviously no point in continuing this conversation, so I will bow out by saying that I find the fact that someone who actively discouraged people from voting for the Republican presidential candidate is calling other people “Republicans in Name Only” to be pretty hilarious.

Whatever. This is just silly. Up is down. Down is up. The grass is blue, and the sky is green.

I have NEVER claimed to be a loyal Republican. I have always claimed to be a conservative, and I self identify as a paleoconservative. I have always counseled conservatives to be free agents. Work in the Republican primary system AND third parties (particularly if they have ballot status in your State). Vote for the most conservative GOP primary candidate and if the GOP nominee is insuffciently conservative vote for the third party nominee in the general.

I seldom use the RINO term myself. But that is not the point. The point is that when RSM or any other partisan movement conservative uses it, they DO NOT and never have meant disloyal to the Republican Party per se. They mean not conservative enough in the way the movement defines conservatism (which is often wrong). This is a fact. Any contention otherwise is semantic game playing and nothing more.

“Republican In Name Only, or RINO, is a neologism created by Los Angeles conservative activist Celeste Greig. It is considered a disparaging term for a member of the Republican Party of the United States (the GOP) whose political views or actions are perceived as insufficiently conservative or otherwise outside the party mainstream.”

But what does Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of the people, know about what a term is popularly understood to mean? Better to have Jacques Derrida up there deconstruct the language for us and tell us peons what it really means.

Here is how the Urban Dictionary defines RINO with example sentences included.

“Republican in name only; typically means a member of the GOP who’s more liberal than a Republican should be

Schwarzegger’s one big RINO!”

and

“Republican who acts and votes like a liberal and ignores the wishes of other Republicans.

Okay, I think the dispute over the RINO label is taking the conversation nowhere. Let’s focus on one of the specific points McCain makes in the linked post from AmSpec. I should acknowledge that my earlier comment was responding as much to this as I was to the “Republicans who really matter” item. The two are closely related, since his reference to “RINOism” was a direct response to the poll data in question, but let’s leave the other post aside for a moment.

What does McCain say in this other post? Here is one claim:

“You’re not going to get favorable treatment from, say, “60 Minutes” by being a dependable voice for the grassroots GOP.”

It is unlikely that anyone on the right is going to get favorable treatment from 60 Minutes under any circumstances, but who determines what counts as being a “dependable voice for the grassroots GOP”? (Note once again that McCain is putting things in explicitly party-political terms.) Is it the person who cheers the grassroots on as are they are duped with crude pseudo-populist identitarian appeals to rally them in support of a GOP agenda that harms their actual interests? McCain has a line about “GOP quislings,” but who was a bigger booster than anyone of Palin than R.S. McCain? Palin’s nomination was the ultimate exercise in co-opting the grassroots to serve the cause of a national party that McCain himself attacks as being disconnected from and hostile to the grassroots, yet the relative few on the right who criticized Palin were presumed to be cocktail-sipping quislings. Maybe it is the Palinite cheerleaders who are the enabling quislings of the party leadership. How about that?

One point I would make here is that complaining about the talking heads who receive favorable media attention is at best a distraction from addressing what is really wrong, and at worst it is an attempt to deflect attention away from those who are actually responsible. Moaning about how this or that columnist is not a team player–which is the core of the issue–is all very well as a movement and/or party solidarity-building exercise, but can anyone honestly say that the movement and party have lately suffered from an excess of internal dissent? Would we not say, as long-time critics of the movement and party, that this constant demand to be a team player and not to speak against “the family” is the source of many current political woes? Does this demand make any more sense when it is being imposed on people we disagree with?

I think most of us here can agree that conservatives were entirely too deferential to the former President and his officials. There is a misguided attachment to the Presidency among conservatives for reasons we can discuss later, but it creates an atmosphere in which there is great reluctance to make strong principled critiques of a Republican President until it is far too late. This same excessive attachment to prominent figures, such as Limbaugh, and the resulting pile-ons against the Jerry Taylors of the world make it clear that the path to advancement in institutional conservatism is to keep one’s mouth shut or to engage in apologetics on behalf of the approved figureheads. It’s not as if the defenders of Limbaugh are wearing hairshirts and living in the wilderness–they’re doing all right for themselves, too.

Why not be a little harder on the people who flatter and ingratitate themselves with a radio personality–they are abasing themselves no less, and perhaps more, than the ones who are getting temporary favorable coverage as a critic of the radio personality. The latter may occasionally get some attention from the media, but the former are the people leading and running the conservative movement, which makes them a more significant obstacle to recovery. It is the same refusal to accept constructive criticism of leaders happening all over again. Typically, paleo and alt-right people see how deeply foolish this resistance to criticism is when applied to politicians, but I submit respectfully that the same wariness is not always on display when the discussion turns to figures such as Limbaugh and other movement favorites.

Regarding the 5/18 post on “RINOism,” I would just add that McCain’s interpretation of GOP collapse across demographic groups is like something from a Politburo officer. He describes the collapse as a result of “the Republican elite’s anti-grassroots strategy.” He says this not even eight months since Palin, his grassroots-mobilizing heroine, was on the presidential ticket. What “anti-grassroots” strategy is he talking about? Base mobilization has been the political strategy of the GOP leadership for almost a decade. Of course it has always been cynical and exploitative, as I have been saying for years, but who was cheering on the biggest example of that cynical exploitation all of last year and into the new year? It was RSM. Now he wants to put all of the blame on some “anti-grassroots strategy” that never existed.

If anyone wants to know why the meliorists and “reformers” frequently get the upper hand in setting the agenda when it comes to actual policy, he needs only to look at what is being offered by some of their most vocal, vehement opponents (an inchoate “return to principles,” which is never related to contemporary conditions or political reality) and then look at the often-wrong but frequently practicable proposals provided by the meliorists. It is because I disagree with so many of those meliorist proposals that I cannot stand RSM’s sort of opposition. We aren’t going to beat something with nothing, and for the most part nothing is what McCain and those like him are offering at the moment. That he compounds this mistake with other misreadings and sloppy language (e.g., “RINOism”) just makes it even more clear that his analysis is unreliable.

Then, of course, there is this charming item that Rod has pointed out. Does anyone still admire RSM’s spirit? Does anyone believe for a minute that criticizing Mark Levin’s angry disrespect for a woman caller (gentility and respect for women no doubt also being the marks of geeks and young punks) implies an elitist contempt for radio hosting as such? Does anyone take seriously that Levin was engaged in mere “blunt expression” rather than angrily shouting at a woman for no reason and declaring that her husband would be better off with a bullet in his brain? I suppose you could call it “boyish audacity,” if by that one meant the temper tantrum of a spoiled child.

“For instance, the Republican indifference to crazy deficits actually began under Reagan and the Kemp/Roth tax cut. Now, they never meant for it to go this far, but at some point a lot of the base interpreted all of this to mean that lower taxes were always fine and would, generally, lead to expansive tax revenues.”

I’m not quite getting everything jetan wants to conclude from his post, but I wanted to touch on this because it’s important for teasing out the relationship between the “thirty year talking points” and where we are today.

It’s a little unfair to say that the early Reagan years were indifferent to crazy deficits because the problems that we had then were different, just as I wouldn’t necessarily characterize someone as an inflation dove based today’s problems. The point being was that Congressional spending demand was irreformable and in any case we had bigger fish to fry. The key data point was the 1983 tax increase where Bob Dole engineered a deal where the Congress would supposedly agree to $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in increased taxes. As it turned out, we got the tax increases but no spending cuts at all, in fact spending increased moderately. On the other hand lower taxes did (and does) lead to increased growth so that was the genesis of what became the Norquist strategy.

The theory was that we could “grow our way out” of the deficits. The problem with that theory wasn’t that it didn’t work, but rather that it did. We did this under Reagan and under Clinton so the political establishment in both parties internalized this and lowered their already subterranean levels of spending restraint.

So at this point we have to leave the thirty year talking points. The Norquist strategy is past its usefulness. It’s something of a cliche to say that the principles are constant, but the circumstances to apply them change. But cliche or not, it’s true nonetheless. The interesting part, the hard part is to show exactly what this means in concrete terms instead of abstract ones. We can no longer afford to view Congressional spending as irreformable. There’s a chart circulating around the blogosphere showing the Bush fiscal policy vs. Obama’s projections. The economy can’t survive Obama’s projections. That’s the point of the Tea Parties. That’s why, for all their faults, mainstream conservatives and the GOP are still _today_ the best hope for prosperity, civilization and limited government.

“Thereâ€™s obviously no point in continuing this conversation, so I will bow out by saying that I find the fact that someone who actively discouraged people from voting for the Republican presidential candidate is calling other people â€œRepublicans in Name Onlyâ€ to be pretty hilarious.”

There wouldn’t be any point in belaboring this, except that there’s more than one thing in play here and it’s worth some effort to keep them straight. RINO’s came about as “moderate” members of the GOP establishment turned selling out conservative principle into an art form. That was the point of the Specter defection: it’s not that you have to compromise something to achieve a higher good. It’s that you can’t keep them on the reservation no matter what you promise. (By contrast, I think the Maine sisters are actually pretty reasonable. They have differences with mainstream conservatism, but as I read it they’re not out to stick a needle in our eye just for spite.)

It’s also somewhat blameworthy, imo, for people of more or less conservative inclinations to vote for Chuck Baldwin or write in Ron Paul or whatever. But whatever can be said for this, it’s not RINOism.

IIRC, the stuff Stacy is complaining about isn’t either one, so in particular isn’t RINOism. So he probably ought to be a little more careful about using that word. What he’s really complaining about is the establismentarian mentality of the GOP. But the thing to bear in mind is, that’s a 100% legit beef. The party establishment is too caught up in the sausage-making part of governance to really care about limited government. But, the Tea Party-ish base still does care. And anybody else who cares needs to find a way to help them out.

“Moaning about how this or that columnist is not a team playerâ€“which is the core of the issueâ€“is all very well as a movement and/or party solidarity-building exercise, but can anyone honestly say that the movement and party have lately suffered from an excess of internal dissent?”

Yes, actually we can. The important thing is to figure out what exactly the dissent is _dissent from_.

To some extent, John McCain, Stacy McCain, the GOP, and Mark Levin are all side issues. At bottom, the real target of the dissent is Greater Red State America, its aspirations and capabilities. For the all the Palins out there, who want to build their own families, earn their own keep, and mind their own business, if freedom in America has any future, this is _their_ country. This is the crucial point that (Stacy) McCain is getting at, though sometimes he should state it better than he does.

The problem is bandwidth. Lots of people have lots of emotional issues of one kind or another. Iâ€™m guessing Les is more or less a garden variety liberal, so his bogeymen go back to Reagan. By contrast, most people who â€œshouldâ€ vote Republican are stuck on Bush.

Koz, your understanding of disagreement is as nebulous as your explication of the super mojo you believe you (meaning, I guess, some version of conservatism) the nation will turn to for its salvation. I doubt that by your terms I’m a garden variety liberal; you would probably find me reprehensible, some kind of screaming wild eyed radical; in world terms maybe some kind of social democrat. My “bogeymen”–more accurately, my disdain/disgust for the Republican party–goes at least to Nixon, the prior overtly criminal administration that trained the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, the heart of our most recent overtly criminal administration. I don’t have a good definition of “conservative,” and most of Daniel’s posts indicate to me that self-described conservatives don’t either. Your claim about all the good done under the Republicans over the last few decades is laughable to me. I don’t think there’s an actual progressive on the national scene, but at least Democrats seem to have some interest in governance for the good of the country and most of its citizens. Republicans appear to me to be a collection of radical imperialists, corporate cronies and really stupid economic theorists, interested on ruling at all costs, not in governing. The actual result of Republican rule over the last 40 years has been increasing deficits, erosion of middle and lower class economic position, deepening social divides, foreign adventurism and erosion of US standing and influence abroad, and concentration and abuse of executive power. I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed.

“At bottom, the real target of the dissent is Greater Red State America, its aspirations and capabilities. For the all the Palins out there, who want to build their own families, earn their own keep, and mind their own business, if freedom in America has any future, this is _their_ country. This is the crucial point that (Stacy) McCain is getting at, though sometimes he should state it better than he does.”

I think the problem with this statment is that modern movement conservatism – and Palin is not just part and parcel of this, but is really the apothesis of this – does a horrible, horrible job of representing what you call “Greater Red State America.” And I DON’T mean that in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas” sort of “they are voting against their economic interests” kind of way. Modern movement conservatism is an uholy alliance of the neocons and Corporate amerca – and doesn’t give a damn about the base, and in fact laughs at it in private. And to believe that Palin is some sort of genuinely populist alternative to that reality is delusional in the extreme. It may be a delusion born of desperation and lack of reasonable alternatives, but it is deperation none the less.

“The economy canâ€™t survive Obamaâ€™s projections. Thatâ€™s the point of the Tea Parties. Thatâ€™s why, for all their faults, mainstream conservatives and the GOP are still _today_ the best hope for prosperity, civilization and limited government.”

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the first two sentences are true. Why you think that the second sentence follows from that is a mystery to me. I mean, if the situation was significantly less dire than you think it is, I could see a sort of lesser of two evils argument. But if things are as bad as you say, how is current movement conservatism – with all of it’s yes, manifest faults – possibly going to save the day. Limited government? Are we talking about same GOP and “mainstream conservatives?” Or are you, perhaps, referencing a GOP and conservative movement from some sort of alternate reality?

Okay, that last sentence came out too snarky. But really, it’s hard for me to understand supporters of limited government supporting EITHER party in the United States today.

And to just focus on Palin for a minute, I can certainly understand how a populist conservative could have initially seen her as possible savior for the party (though even from the start there aspects of her performance as governor that should have been concerning for small government conservatives).

But, even setting aside all of the factors that turned off moderates and even many center right conservatives, one would think that populist conservitives would have realized very early on, with her enthusiastic embrace of neoconservatism (in apparent contrast to some earlier paleo-friendly positions/statements), that Palin is, like so many other politicians of every political stripe, perfectly willing to accomodate herself the power structure as a means to gain political power.

“Letâ€™s assume for the sake of argument that the first two sentences are true. Why you think that the second sentence follows from that is a mystery to me. I mean, if the situation was significantly less dire than you think it is, I could see a sort of lesser of two evils argument.”

Actually, the fact that the situation is as dire as it is is what makes the whole thing work. Otherwise the tendency to play the game between the 40-yard lines would be too much.

Remember how Mitt Romney campaigned on the “three-legged stool”. Well, instead of that let’s think of a three-link chain. Theres Greater Red State America, linked to the movement conservative intelligentsia, linked to the GOP political establishment. All three links have adapted to the welfare state in various ways but none of them really like it.

The crooked timber of humanity has many flaws but adaptability is one of its singular virtues. In the next 3-5 years, the foundations of the entitlement state in America are going to be in play unlike they’ve been at any time since LBJ. The other team is going to be spending all their energy adding to the already heavy dead weight on the economy. But mainstream conservatives, and the three link chain that it’s a part of, has the talent _and the instinct_ to get us out of this jam.

“I think the problem with this statment is that modern movement conservatism – and Palin is not just part and parcel of this, but is really the apothesis of this – does a horrible, horrible job of representing what you call â€œGreater Red State America.â€”

Yes and no. There’s been a lot of mistakes over the last decade or so, but the loyalty is real. To see that, just take a look at this Mark Levin business and see who’s on which side. Levin is perceived, correctly, as having skin in the game defending the interest of Greater Red State America. That’s the only reason he’s being defended, and in ought to be pretty clear that Stacy is defending him on exactly these grounds.

With a few exceptions that’s more or less the problem with the various dissident conservatives. They have either consciously or otherwise repudiated the sovereignty of Greater Red State America. And it’s a particular issue with the paleos, whose aesthetic sense is commendable in some ways but as a practical matter is the driving force behind their mindless factionalism.

“And to just focus on Palin for a minute, I can certainly understand how a populist conservative could have initially seen her as possible savior for the party (though even from the start there aspects of her performance as governor that should have been concerning for small government conservatives).”

I don’t know what exactly this is referring to. I have hope for Palin as a politician, but more important than Palin the politician is who she represents. In lots of important ways she is the personification of Greater Red State America.

This might not be such a big deal in other circumstances, but right now the lack of lower-case Republican legitimacy in America is staggering, and it’s focus was the wholesale trahison des clercs against the (John) McCain campaign. The reestablisment of the sovereignty of Greater Red State America is not necessarily sufficient for anything but a necessary part of any kind of recovery for America, economically, culturally or otherwise.

It’s clear to me that you’re saying all of that in good faith. But from where I sit, that represents such a massively flawed view of reality – not a logical flaw, not a flaw in terms of political philosophy (we differ there, but not in a way that precludes discussion – but rather rather a massive failure to accurately appreciate the real facts on the ground, so to speak, that any kind of discussion is impossible – certainly in the context of a blog comments section.

Your hope for America is a nation against taxation, against competence, against education and expertise, in which every state receives more in federal payments than it pays in federal taxes? Personified by a selfish, divisive, vindictive demagogue fundamentally ignorant of and disinterested in national and international issues beyond their immediate impact on her, personally? What tops the list of attractions? Her concern over witchcraft and right religion, her openness to secession or her impeccable family values?